Infiltrating Jorgenfist

Our heroes spent some time deciding how they were going to take on the stone giant fortress. They had planned on flying in, invisible, but decided that this plan would leave Ciaran dangerously low on spells. The group opted to do further exploration before choosing a course of action.

Cecil scouted the foothills of the Iron Peaks around the valley to make sure that there were no giants lurking there. However, it seemed that all the giants in the area were camped in or around Jorgenfist itself. He did spot a large cave opening overlooking the fortress.

Ciaran decided to investigate the other side of the valley and the cliff overlooking the river where Cecil had spotted what might be some caves. Invisibly flying down over the cliff edge, Ciaran discovered two caves. One contained sleeping wyverns guarding what looked like a valuable red gem. Naturally, Ciaran decided he just had to have that gem, so he snuck in and grabbed it.

After obtaining the wyvern’s prized possession, Ciaran ventured into the second cave, which was crawling with small insects and other creatures. In the depths of the cave, he spotted several deathweb spiders, who had filled the back of the cave with some serious webbing. A couple of fireballs later, there were significantly fewer insects in the cave, and one dead deathweb spider. The fire had also destroyed some of the webbing, indicating tunnels heading in the direction of Jorgenfist.

The possibility of entering Jorgenfist through hidden tunnels seemed like a good one, so the party decided on that as their course of action. But first, Cecil and Oparal were determined to investigate the cave up in the mountains. They flew up and into a large cave filled with treasure. There was no apparent guardian of the treasure, which immediately made them suspicious. Still, they were able to gather a fair amount of treasure and get back to the cave where the party was hiding out.

The next morning, the party headed out, using Oparal’s flight capabilities to safely manoeuvre everyone into the deathweb cave. A few more fireballs from Ciaran cleared out the other spiders that were hiding in the depths of the cave, and revealed a winding tunnel. Though the tunnel did seem to be heading in the right general direction, it turned out to be infested with redcaps. After the first brutal encounter with the party, however, the redcaps retreated and did not trouble the party again.

After several hours wandering the maze-like tunnels, our heroes finally emerged in an underground cave that was also the lair of a particularly aggressive kobold. Nu and the others made short work of her, however, leaving her unconscious and relieved of her valuables. The heroes made similarly short work of a group of stone giants who were off-duty. The cook followed, and it wasn’t until a stone giant elder stepped from the shadows that the slaughter stopped, for a while, at least.

Conna the Wise, as she introduced herself, was one of the elders of Mokmurian’s tribe until Mokmurian defeated her husband, murdered him, and took over the tribe. He has since rallied many more giants to his cause. As a deposed elder, tradition forbids her from directly opposing Mokmurian, but she was more than happy to offer information to the heroes and even cast small buffs on them. She asked that the heroes not kill any more stone giants unnecessarily, as most of them would likely abadon the cause if Mokmurian himself was slain.